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Under unusual particle conditions, more red light was scattered out of the direct beam, leaving the sun and moon with the scary blue-green appearance. The fire engine at the beginning of this story had been chasing sunlight. Sunlight transformed by the chemical afterlife of a volcano half a world away. People did not yet have weather satellites, global aerosol maps or color photography. Instead, the world became an observing network. In 1883, the world was not yet wireless. We didn't have radio like we have now. They did have a rapidly expanding telegraph system that had become kind of a 19th century planetary net. So quickly, reports of strange skies crossed oceans faster than volcanic hazards.